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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950774">Demons' Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shardana_Queen/pseuds/Shardana_Queen'>Shardana_Queen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:35:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,423</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950774</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shardana_Queen/pseuds/Shardana_Queen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Time flows peacefully and tirelessly like a river, the origin and end of everything. You don't see it, you don't hear it, you don't touch it, yet its power is immeasurable.</p>
<p>Will Sesshoumaru, demon of immense powers, emerge victorious from this new challenge, whose outcome will decide the fate of the world he rules?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Demons' Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<h1>
  <span class="u"> <strong>Demons' Time</strong> </span>
</h1>
<h2>Chapter 1 – Blue Bunny</h2>
<p> </p>
<p>Ocean greeted her family with a big smile as they drove away from her home, the soft rays of the sunset gently embracing the atmosphere of that perfect day. It was a hot Sunday in May, and her parents and her twin brothers had come to keep her company and to enjoy the swimming pool and the large garden of her new home, traveling for almost three hours between highways and provincial roads to reach her. Her heart tightened on seeing them leave, but she could not afford to invite them to stay longer: not only because, probably, their work and school commitments would not allow them, but above all because her personal <em>condition</em> required solitude.</p>
<p>She thought that, <em>despite</em> <em>everything, </em>she had been very lucky in life: she could enjoy the pleasure of a beautiful, healthy family, who loved her and supported her throughout; and in addition she had been kissed by an unexpected and brilliant career in the writing world, which at twenty-six had filled her soul with satisfaction and her bank account with a lot of money. For that reason, a few months earlier she had been able to afford that delightful mansion in Maryland, located in a respectable suburban residential neighborhood surrounded by a few acres of wooded land with immeasurable beauty.</p>
<p>Having used a pseudonym had granted her the anonymity that allowed her not to be recognized by any of her neighbors, despite her books always at the top of the national bestseller list. Indeed, it had been the most important of the requests she had made to her agent: no one in the world had to find out who was behind <em>Damon</em> <em>Kairòs's </em>name, under penalty of the immediate end of her copious and profitable narrative production. She had been satisfied, albeit with some initial protest that still had some trawl – always promptly arrested.</p>
<p>With cheerful hops she returned to the veranda where, until not even half an hour earlier, she had sipped lemonade with her parents while the twins played in the front lawn, twirling barefoot here and there and having fun doing the wheel with the skirt of her short white linen dress, simple and fresh. She filled the glass again and continued for a few moments to observe the orange rays of the setting sun that protruded from beyond the high tops of the birches surrounding her garden, her head full of joy.</p>
<p>She hadn't had such a great day in a long time. There had been no special event, no party, just her family visiting her. Still, she felt like she had received a beautiful gift that day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She sighed, while a little melancholy made its way into her radiant heart. She would not have wanted to resign herself to antithetical considerations about her existence, but she was unable to resist the temptation while that innate <em>Memento Mori</em> that was her conscience brought her back down to earth.</p>
<p>Yes, she was certainly very lucky.</p>
<p>Yet serenity, which seemed a mandatory attribute for one with her past, could not be more unknown to her.</p>
<p>Her <em>condition</em> soon forced her to make life choices that had alienated her not only from worldliness, but also from her own loved ones. Relationships, whether romantic or not, had never lasted so long, given her complete inability to keep commitments and be present when the time was right. And this had always caused her so much sadness, because she loved people and loved being among them. Whenever she had the chance and nothing happened that forced her to run away, she felt like a Tuareg who after days of walking in the desert finally meets an oasis: reborn.</p>
<p>Of course, it was also thanks to her <em>condition</em> that she had become a successful writer: her fantasy books were a smash hit.</p>
<p>Her agent once asked her where she got her inspiration from. She, not expecting that question, had stared at him for a few moments in silence, only to start laughing hysterically and finally crying like a fountain, deserving the shocked and worried look of him.</p>
<p>
  <em>The fact was that she had personally lived almost all the experiences she talked about in her stories.</em>
</p>
<p>She moaned, thinking back to when it all began.</p>
<p>Oh, God, not the very first time this happened. From the stories her mother - unaware of everything like the rest of her family – told her, since she was an infant her disappearances had caused many concerns. <em>"You’ve always been elusive, even during your childhood."</em> They used to tell her.</p>
<p>She thought about the first <em>trip</em> she remembered.</p>
<p>She was three years old at the time, and she was a slip of a thing with a thick black mop and two huge blue eyes who liked to laugh and play. Her mother had just taken her out of the tub, wrapped in a large, soft pink towel and had her seated in the king bed, only to leave her for a few moments after realizing she had forgotten the hair dryer in the ground-floor bathroom.</p>
<p>It was at that moment, while she was alone and had just got her hands on her favorite puppet (a chubby blue rabbit called <em>Blue Bunny</em>), that it happened.</p>
<p>She felt a tingle sensation invade her whole body, her eyesight clouded, her breath was cut down in her throat and her mouth dried up.</p>
<p>It lasted just a few moments.</p>
<p>When her senses went back to work, she perceived to be in a very different place than the one she was. Slowly, a little frightened, she had removed from her face the terry cloth, which in that strange journey had ended up wrapping her like a cocoon. She did not move it much, she had no intention of separating herself from that improvised armor; she had just cleared her eyes a little.</p>
<p>The large wooden ceiling could not be certain that of her house, and the furniture was also quite different. She was certainly on a bed, but the blankets were not full of flowers like her mom's, but snow-white. And in front of her was a child. An unknown child, who had nothing to do with her family. She, at that time, was an only child: the brothers would arrive only eight years later.</p>
<p>It was precisely that child, about her age, who pushed her to bring out her droll disheveled hair from the sponge wrap.</p>
<p>He had almond-shaped eyes - which would have been identical to her mother's if it weren't for their golden yellow color - a short mop of straight white hair, two magenta stripes on each cheek, a purple crescent in the forehead and pointed ears. Like her, he was wrapped in a towel, as if he had just come out of his daily bath. He was beautiful, so out of the ordinary and full of colors that her gaze could not help but be kidnapped.</p>
<p>He also stared at her, much less enchanted, rather serious and wary.</p>
<p>As a sunny and cheerful child, she loved company and made friends quickly. So, despite finding herself mysteriously in an unknown location, a smile brightened her face when she recognized in that never seen child a possible new playmate.</p>
<p>She immediately freed her arms from the towel and handed <em>Blue Bunny</em> to her new friend, eager to play with him. When he didn't want to take it, she tried to bring it even closer. It was when the puppet touched the eccentric child's nose that, with a sudden movement, he pulled his hand out of the cocoon of fabric in which it was wrapped and a shooting pain pushed her to move back, her arm tightened to the small chest inside which her little heart had started to ride wildly, <em>Blue Bunny</em> far away from them, lost in the cold stone floor of the room.</p>
<p>In an instant, her smile had turned off in her face, while shocked she looked alternately at the child's sharp nails still full of her blood and at her limb, torn by three bright grooves. She burst into tears, betrayed in her naivety and suffering.</p>
<p>She almost did not notice the tingling that, as before, had invaded her body, clouding her senses. She found herself incomprehensible back on her parents' bed and, soon, even in the arms of her mother who, confused and worried, studied those ugly cuts from which so much blood came out. She soon found herself surrounded by gauze and disinfectants, while the hair dryer lay abandoned in a chair. That evening she cried for a long time, more for fear than for pain, and for several nights her mother had to leave the light on to allow her to sleep: it took some time for the nightmare of that naughty child to stop disturbing her dreams.</p>
<p>Instinctively she looked at her right arm where, also because of the slight tan acquired during the sunny day, stood out those three white furrows which represented the only scars of her body. Curiously, none of the injuries that had scratched her figure in twenty-six years of life – and they had been, unfortunately, many, most accumulated during her uncontrollable <em>journeys</em> – had left a perennial memory like that.</p>
<p>And it was the travels in that strange dimension that forced her, in the growth phase, to ask parents to receive lessons in different areas, often leaving them surprised. Fortunately, being her mother a Japanese woman, no one had found anything strange when she asked to learn her language well; martial arts had already received less enthusiasm; boxing had left them surprised, fencing had silenced them, the study of survival techniques had disoriented them. But, in the end, they had always supported her, unknowingly saving her from certain death.</p>
<p>Until she was ten, her <em>condition</em> had not been so worrisome. Those<em> trips </em>were limited to three or four per year, didn't last more than half an hour and during those moments she had never been in difficult situations<em>.</em></p>
<p>Everything had changed later. The frequency had increased to three or four episodes per <em>month, </em>she was often among violent events, forced to live them even for an hour or two.</p>
<p>On her 20th birthday, she had been away for five hours, in the midst of a war between human soldiers and monstrous-looking non-human creatures. When she returned, her beautiful blue dress was reduced to a rag, her body was full of contusions and wounds of varying severity, and part of her hair was burnt. Luckily, in the middle of that university party, nobody was sober enough to worry about her. By that time, the frequency of travel had become weekly.</p>
<p>After twenty-five years, she happened to be away even a few days.</p>
<p>She moaned, embittered. How many lies her <em>condition </em>had cost her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>"Honey, where have you been?"</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"I had a sudden business trip, Dad!"</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"But honey, a whole week without contacting us? Next time find a way, your mother was going to call the police!"</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Ocean, you told me you'd come to my graduation!"</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Forgive me Kim, I wasn't well..."</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p><em>"</em> <em>I thought you too were interested in continuing our relationship, but I must have been wrong."</em></p>
<p>
  <em>"Paul, no! You weren't wrong! I really wanted..."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"... So where did you end up last night? You said you were going to the toilet, but you never came back to the table! I didn't know what to do in front of my parents anymore!”</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>How many similar talks had she faced? So many.</p>
<p>But she could not reveal to anyone her secret. Not even to her family. Certainly the fear of not being understood, of being taken for crazy and interned in some clinic for the mentally ill increased this feeling. But it was also her way of keeping her loved ones safe. How much would she worry them by telling the truth? And what would their anxieties solve? It was not possible to find a cure. She had looked for anything that explained and gave a name to what she was among the books of medicine, history, myths and legends all over the world, even in some encyclopedia of astrology. She had not found it.</p>
<p>There was nothing to clarify why, since she was aware, her ego migrated to a dimension that resembled Japan in the Sengoku period, but full of monsters and magic.</p>
<p>None of the books consulted, moreover, had help to explain who was that child that had left her those ugly scars. She was sure he wasn't human. In her fantasy/autobiographical books had spoken of him as a dark elf. It seemed to her the most realistic representation: pointy ears, rare beauty, innate evilness. She had never met him again, yet those scars made her think of him every time she looked at them.</p>
<p>It was while looking at her scarred arm that she began to feel the well-known tingling. It was the alarm bell thanks to which, over the years, she had avoided disappearing in front of folk, running away with any excuse.</p>
<p>She opened her eyes, astonished. She had been back less than twenty-four hours since her last <em>trip</em>, which had lasted a few days. She didn't think the next one would be so close.</p>
<p>She ran into the house, grabbing the camouflage bag just in time and thanked she supplied it with everything needed when, late at night, she was back home, even if very tired. Going to that hell unarmed, without clothes, blankets, medicines and food was certainly not recommended. Also because, unfortunately, her <em>travels</em> had no constant, if not the place of return: she always appeared at the exact point where she was disappeared, but in the other dimension she never materialized in the same place or at the same time of the year, and often had the feeling that the time span between one visit and another was sharply greater than the time spent in her world. She had happened to find herself battling in a field full of snow-covered dead, and a few days later, strolling short-sleeved through a forest full of spring flowers and perfumes.</p>
<p>She never knew what to expect, but in order to survive she had to be ready for anything.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sesshoumaru, thoughtfully, gazed from the window of his bedroom at the clouds surrounding his immense palace suspended in the sky.</p>
<p>It was late at night, and his sleep had been interrupted a few minutes earlier by a bad feeling that had suddenly caught him, a sort of atavistic fear that had shaken him to the depths of his demonic soul, combined with a strange, meandering migraine, inexplicably different from those usually suffered.</p>
<p>He got up in the sweat of a bad panic attack, his claws bared, his fangs extended and his eyes red as fire, in alarm, looking around in search of the enemy <em>- the strange feeling of having him close, very close</em>.</p>
<p>When his mad gaze rested on the battered blue rabbit puppet placed  in the library opposite, something in its simplicity and innocence had given a shake to his rational consciousness that, immediately, had taken over the command, imposing on his ego the concentration necessary to return to normality. Even if that situation had nothing normal. He had gotten up, finding benefit in the crisp night air.</p>
<p>Something was about to happen. He did not know what, but whatever it was was undoubtedly worthy of his attention.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His mind ran to Inuyasha, his brother, who had recently married Kagome, a human with great spiritual power coming from the future. He thought about her pregnancy, just started. And he thought of Rin, the man’s cub that he had entrusted to the care of the old Kaede, the priestess of the village where they all lived. Were they in danger?</p>
<p>Not that their existence had any particular meaning for him ... but life had recently resumed its normal and peaceful course after the violent vicissitudes of the period in which Naraku had dominated those lands, causing the death of demons and humans, and even he himself admitted that peace deserved to be savored longer than a few miserable years.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>However, the feeling he had felt meant only one thing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was one of the most powerful demons in existence, perhaps the most powerful ever. His blood was so pure that it could be considered sacred. He was the perfect demon. In the pyramid of the food chain, he stood at the top.</p>
<p>Still, that ancestral fear had made him feel hunted. And if even he himself was in danger, what fate awaited everyone else?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He shook his head, irritated by that thought. He didn't want to think about it at that time. Besides, it wasn't necessary. The feeling had lasted a moment, so danger was not imminent. Of course, the next day he would have been better informed about it ... but now he simply wanted to relax.</p>
<p>With a leap he came out of his bedroom window, his chest naked and his legs covered by the large blue silk <em>hakama</em> he used to sleep, the trusted <em>Bakusaiga</em> at his side. In an instant he arrived at the foot of the thermal spring included inside the gardens of his palace and, after freeing himself from the only robe he was wearing, peacefully entered in its waters, relaxing almost immediately.</p>
<p>In that place of peace even his mind, always crowded with too many thoughts, could find respite.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>Splash</em>
</p>
<p>"<em>Ouch</em>!" Ocean murmured, then biting her tongue. If she had learned one thing in those years, it was that her entry into that dimension had to be as quiet as possible. Going unnoticed was often the only way that allowed her to return home alive.</p>
<p>There were, however, some cases in which it was really bad for her to keep her mouth shut. For example, when she ended up in a source of hot water, her bare feet slipped and she, pushed also by the non-ridiculous weight of the bag she carried, ended up sitting in the hard stone, getting completely wet.</p>
<p>Curses came to her as she tried to sit up and get settled, the white linen dress now stuck to the skin and completely transparent, the bare breasts evident under the corsage, the legs naked and exhibited in all their firm length. Yes, of course, she had spare clothes with her, but if some rogue had been around at that time of night and seeing her had spicy cravings, she would have had to surrender to an almost immediate confrontation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A sword to her throat, however, made it clear that the situation was already tragic, also because in the hurry given by that unexpected <em>journey,</em> she hadn’t had time to extract her <em>wakizashi</em> from the bag.</p>
<p>She swallowed, freezing instantly, and slowly looked up.</p>
<p>In the darkness that surrounded her, illuminated by some distant light that revealed the presence of a village or some large house beyond the trees that surrounded that small glade, the moon made the thermal source where she ended up a silver mirror, whose reverberation was surpassed only by that of the weapon held by her host.</p>
<p>Despite the fumes of water vapor rising from the hot spring to the sky, it was impossible not to notice immediately that her assailant was a man, was naked and had a Greek god's body, all sculpted muscles, golden skin and fabulous proportions. She could not see him in the face, she only noticed that he had long light hair, from whose strands drops were pouring down the sensual curves of his figure.</p>
<p>She seriously doubted, however, that celebrating his beauty would help her survive. And even her sudden hormonal awakening was out of place and of little support.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you." He asserted, his voice gloomy and threatening.</p>
<p>Yeah, why didn't he have to? Because she didn't want to die in those poor conditions? Or because she was young, still had so many books to write, and deserved to understand something of her damn existence before moving on to the next one?</p>
<p>"Because I'm unarmed, I don't know where I am, and I don't know who you are... and because I didn't want to offend or bother you." She said, heartbroken, raising her hands in surrender, still trying to see the features of the man's face.</p>
<p>Silence followed her words. Despite this, the sword still remained at her throat. The touchy stranger must have been really angry because of the <em>setback</em> that had interrupted his bath.</p>
<p>"If you consider my intrusion an intolerable dishonor, I ask at least the possibility of a duel in which I can try to defend myself and die with honor." She continued, now a little piqued. "So it would be an execution!"</p>
<p>"And apparently you think you don't deserve it." Mockery.</p>
<p>"No!" She protested. She had been suffering that fate for twenty-six years, she didn't deserve it at all! "It's not my fault that I always end up in this damn <em>world!"</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Something in her last sentence had to shake him, because he withdrew his sword a few centimeters and took a step forward to look at her better, his face finally exposed to the light and to her eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ocean swallowed loudly, her mouth suddenly dry.</p>
<p><em>No, she didn't expect that.</em> Perhaps she never really believed that that moment would come.</p>
<p>Her blue eyes, if possible, became even bigger.</p>
<p>Yet, in that magnificent masculine face she could not fail to recognize the features and colors of that child who had once caused her so much pain. It was undeniably him. The ears were hidden by long light hair, but the purple crescent and the two magenta stripes on the sides of each cheek were enough to identify him, together with those unfathomable almond eyes of molten gold color.</p>
<p>His beauty was breathtaking, as was the terror she felt at the mere memory of his claws. Automatically her gaze pointed at his hands, not more small and chubby but long and tapered, and when she saw his sharp nails she moved back in fear until the bag hit the big boulder she had behind her, stopping her escape. For some reason she was more afraid of his nails than of his <em>katana</em>.</p>
<p><em>"You!"</em> She screeched, shocked.</p>
<p>He seemed confused. It was obvious he didn't remember her.</p>
<p>Ocean instinctively stretched the arm with the scar towards him. <em>"You've done this to me!"</em> She shouted, her voice broken with emotion.</p>
<p>When she saw him raise an elegant eyebrow, skeptical, she turned to look at her limb, realizing that in the fall it had covered himself in mud. With an impatient growl she rinsed it, then showed it to him again. "And you also stole <em>Blue Bunny </em>from me!" Added. "My blue rabbit’s puppet!"</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sesshomaru frowned at those accusations. No, that scar didn't tell him anything. Surely it was produced by claws, but he seriously doubted it could be his own. Besides, the girl's arm was still attached to the rest of her body.</p>
<p>And as for that ridiculous <em>Blue Bunny</em> story, when would he ever go around stealing puppets from….</p>
<p>He opened his eyes, the memory that went to the battered blue rabbit carefully placed in his library, his favorite toy from when he was an infant.</p>
<p>Suddenly a question formed in his head: how did he get it? He never thought about it, but it wasn't the typical toy that a superior demon gives to his son. It couldn't be a gift from his mother.</p>
<p>It took a while to bring that memory back to mind. On the other hand, centuries had passed since then.</p>
<p>But when he did, he was shaken to the soul.</p>
<p>He sniffed the air in search of the smell of that female in front of him. Something in her equipment reminded him of the items that Kagome, his brother's bride, had brought from the future. But the foreigner could not be a mere human for at least two good reasons: first, the way in which she had manifested herself; second, her age, identical to his own if his memories were correct. And humans usually weren't able to blow five hundred candles and keep that fresh and healthy look.</p>
<p>Thinking about it, what had triggered him and pushed to unsheathe his <em>Bakusaiga</em> had been the surprise of finding her in the source’s natural pool without his sense of smell alerting him of her arrival. She hadn't just appeared out of nowhere, she was like nothing. Or rather, what she was - whatever it was - was confused with the surrounding world.</p>
<p>Not even his superfine sense could give her an identity. She did not have the typical smell of demons, but not that of humans either.</p>
<p>He studied her. The blue eyes were large, vaguely almond-shaped, the lips were fleshy, the nose small and elegant, the cheekbones high, the silky skin clear and luminous, the hair long and brown. She was tall, had strong and snappy muscles, a fine physique evidently trained to fight. There was something oriental in her, but the genetic union with the human race that populated the lands in the west was evident. He could have doubts about her country of origin, but it was clear that in her appearance there was nothing from the demonic world.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>She told him it wasn't her fault if she always ended up in his world.</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>He thought back to the feeling that had awakened him that night, that horrible, senseless and never felt fear of being hunted, combined with that dull and meandering pain that had spread between his brain cells like a miasma. Then, she had arrived, accompanied by all the mysteries she carried with her. It could not be coincidence. Everything happened for a reason.</p>
<p>He put his eyes on those of the stranger who looked at him with a mixture of horror, fear and despair, and understood exactly what he should do. He needed her to figure out what was going on.</p>
<p>He sheathed his sword and went ashore, getting dressed. Irritated, he quickly tied the <em>hakama</em> to his waist and started to head towards the castle.</p>
<p>Goodbye serenity.</p>
<p>"Follow me." He ordered, without even looking at her.</p>
<p>He heard her mumble some senseless exclamation as she tried to stand up, took a few steps and slipped back into the muddy stone, and then she got up again and went wearily and unwillingly behind him.</p>
<p>It was going to be a long, very long night.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/><hr/>
<p>
  <strong> <em>To be continued...</em> </strong>
</p>
<hr/><hr/>
<p> </p>
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